Jordan MinorRare Replay (for Xbox One)Rare Replay offers 30 games from across the 30-year legacy of beloved game developer Rare, and while not every game holds up, this huge piece of gaming history will keep you entertained for a long time.

Rare Replay offers 30 games from across the 30-year legacy of beloved game developer Rare, and while not every game holds up, this huge piece of gaming history will keep you entertained for a long time.

While Microsoft has been a dominant force in the PC market for decades, the company is still a relatively new player in the console gaming space. The first Xbox launched at the turn of the millennium, years after the golden age of retro video games. But when Microsoft acquired beloved British game developer Rare, it bought itself a connection to gaming's past. Rare Replay finally taps that well. This Xbox One gaming compilation features 30 titles from across Rare's 30-year legacy for just $30. Not every game holds up, but this huge, Editors' Choice award-winning piece of gaming history will keep you entertained for a long time.

The lengthy list features games from consoles as old as the ZX Spectrum to ones as recent as the Xbox 360. Beyond the almost intimidating amount of time it would take to play through this whole collection, it's arguably a new required text for students of gaming history. However, because some of these downloads are separate Xbox Live rereleases, and therefore not included on the disc, installing all the necessary files can be a long and annoying process.

Memory LaneRare Replay's charming presentation makes the package feel more cohesive than just a bucket of ROMs. From the intro song that reimagines Rare's history as a vaudeville musical to the rustic museum look and orchestrated soundtrack of the game gallery you scroll through, the compilation shows off the production value Rare is known for.

As for more substantial extra features, competing different tasks in each game earns you stamps on your ticket. Collect enough stamps and you can watch a series of behind-the-scenes documentaries on different Rare games. These videos are insightful and well-produced, but a bit melancholy. These days Rare has been stuck making subpar Kinect sports games, a big step down from the company's heyday when the original founders were still around. You can also try short snippets of each game in the Snapshots mode, similar to NES Remix's whirlwind tour through classic Nintendo games.

Too Many GamesWith so many games across so many genres and eras to choose from, you're bound to find at least a few games in Rare Replay that you'll really enjoy. But with so much content, it's also no surprise that not every game holds up.

The ZX Spectrum games are fascinating little fossils. Atic Atac is still a great twitchy action adventure, and I always got a kick out of the werewolf strut walking animation in Knight Lore, one of the first isometric video games. But the package is frontloaded with games so old they're almost unpalatable, and playing a bunch in quick succession reveals how many assets and ideas were recycled between them.

The time capsule of games from Rare's long partnership with Nintendo will probably be more familiar to most gamers. Now that we can revisit them, hopefully we can all finally admit that the brutal Battletoads is simply a bad game and that the only good Killer Instinct is the Xbox One version not made by Rare. It's sad, but understandable, that games starring Nintendo characters like Donkey Kong Country are absent, but the two Banjo-Kazooie platformers are a fun consolation. Perfect Dark is the superior follow-up to Goldeneye 007, the game that established first-person shooters on consoles. Third-person shooter Jet Force Gemini features new controls perfect for contemporary shooter fans. And Conker's Bad Fur Day, not the Xbox remake but the original, remains a vulgar masterpiece, a middle finger to Rare's family-friendly furry animal platformers. It's crazy, but with Rare Replay you can play more Nintendo 64 games on the Xbox One than on the Wii U (not counting the emulated Wii Virtual Console).

Rounding out the list are the Rare games published by the company's new masters at Microsoft. The overlooked Grabbed by the Ghoulies has received the biggest visual bump, and, in retrospect, it kind of plays like a kiddie Dead Rising. Kameo: Elements of Power was a so-so 360 launch game, but the two Viva Piñatas are genuinely wonderful and creative life/gardening sims. Finally, while Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts' focus on vehicle-building may have bothered long-time fans waiting for a hypothetical third platforming installment, it's actually the funniest and most-interesting game in the series.

It's great to see the Xbox One emulating Xbox 360 games, playing old games on new consoles is becoming more of a luxury than a guarantee, but I experienced framerate issues with the more recently released Rare games. Hopefully Microsoft can get these flaws ironed out as the company fulfills its recent Xbox One backward-compatibility promise.

Rare ExportsTogether this treasure trove manages to be even more than the sum of its parts. Playing through this massive collection in marathon sessions caused me to see that Rare games have common elements beyond just giant googly eyes on every character. Games like Solar Jetman display a desire to push the technical envelope on aging hardware, and cheeky humor is a constant, even in later failures like Perfect Dark Zero.

It's no secret that video games are facing a preservation crisis. The industry doesn't know how to archive its own history, or worse, it just doesn't care. Rare Replay, much like the recent Editors' Choice Mega Man Legacy Collection, feels like a game from an alternate dimension where that isn't the case. It's not a cash-grabbing rerelease of a last-gen game, it's an important piece of gaming's past made accessible for us here in the present. And even if you couldn't care less if gaming as a medium is being lost to the sands of time, Rare Replay is still an incredible bargain if all you want to do is play dozens of great video games. Not every individual game in Rare Replay is an Editors' Choice, but as a whole this collection definitely deserves the award.

Rare Replay (for Xbox One)

Bottom Line: Rare Replay offers 30 games from across the 30-year legacy of beloved game developer Rare, and while not every game holds up, this huge piece of gaming history will keep you entertained for a long time.

About the Author

Former PCMag intern Jordan Minor is a senior editor at sister site, Geek.com, and really just wants to use his fancy Northwestern University journalism degree to write about video games. He's previously written for Kotaku, The A.V. Club, Cards Against Humanity, and 148Apps. In his spare time, he also writes dumb screenplays that occasionally become... See Full Bio

Rare Replay (for Xbox One)

Rare Replay (for Xbox One)

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.